Sexual addiction! and Male-Female energy roles/energies

[Monica]

Part of why I dislike porn so much, is that I feel by watching these things alone, we are contributing to more and more females being put into that situation, willing or unwillingly, I feel both are very sad and unfortunate outcomes. I tend to be more sympathetic to those who are forced into it. But to willingly partake in something to me means, that.. they don't care about themselves or their fellow women, which is truly heart breaking,

It's difficult to ascertain the depth of feelings of an other-self. There are many women participating in these actions who, on the surface, seem totally ok with it. These women might argue that it's their body and no one was hurt, so it's no one's business but theirs. Whether anyone was hurt is of course debatable, but it is true that it's their body and their choice to participate in porn/stripping/whatever.

Are these women truly unhappy and even desperate, even though they're smiling on the surface? Surely many of them are. But we can't really know. That's like saying that anyone who is single and having a lot of one-night-stands is really unhappy. It's not really our place to judge them. All we can do is speculate that they might actually feel empty inside, and have compassion for them, but, as with every other human condition, that's where they're at.

However, we can choose to not participate, just as we can choose to not give drugs to a junkie. The fact is that when you are watching some woman in a porn flick, you really don't know anything about her. You don't know if she is enjoying herself and happy with her choice, or if she is in very desperate circumstances or even in bondage. Certainly, if it's a child, that's a given that she is being abused. But in the case of an adult, maybe she is being abused and maybe she isn't. You just don't know.

When porn was an issue for me when I was with that boyfriend, I used to have resentment towards the women who engaged in porn or worked at the strip clubs (many of which are actually places of prostitution). I felt that they were being seductive to men whom they knew were married or in relationships, and I considered that heinous. I mean, if a woman in an office blatantly tries to seduce her married boss, we consider that rather scummy, right? So how is this any different?

Interestingly, one of my best friends from my partying days became a 'high-class' [sic] prostitute. She was very selective and only had about 6 men she serviced. I felt judgement towards her, because the men were married. Yet, at the same time, I knew her very well and I knew how lonely and emotionally messed up she was. She told me that men had used her body so many times, she might as well get paid for it. Knowing how empty her life was helped me to feel compassion for her instead of judgement. She is now in her 50s and still alone, bedridden from illness caused by all the drugs and the breast implants. She had so much beauty in her but her life was destroyed by her belief that she had to please men. The reason she got the implants was because so many men laughed at her small breasts. And she was physically very beautiful! Unbelievable that anyone would laugh at her! Very sad. Yet, on the surface 20 years ago, you would never have guessed how miserable she was inside. She was the ultimate party girl! But I knew better because she confided in me.

On the other hand, I had another friend, not a close friend, who was a stripper. She seemed to have absolutely no issues with it at all, except that she was annoyed that some of the girls at the strip club were engaging in prostitution in the back room of the club. She was very indignant about it because it gave them an unfair advantage over the girls who just stripped. They got more tips. She said she had boundaries so would not do that. But other than that, my impression of her was that she wasn't even aware enough to question her lifestyle at all.

I guess my point here is that we really don't know the person inside that body, so assessing their level of abuse (or not) might not be the most effective way to determine whether or not to support their situation by participating in it.

I sense the potential for people to feel guilty about this, which In my opinion would be a good thing, to an extent, only to open their eyes to new possibilities and try to incorporate them into their belief system.

It's fashionable in some New Age circles to 'not be into guilt.' But I think a distinction can be made between healthy reflection and remorse resulting in forgiveness and a change in behavior, vs. carrying the burden of guilt long past the time when it was useful. The purpose of guilt is to alert us that something we did needs to be addressed and reflected upon. Once we do that, make any changes in our thinking or behavior we want to make, and forgive ourselves, then the guilt has served its purpose and can be let go, to be replaced by forgiveness.

I have in the past had a disconnect from that in terms of what I saw on the internet. It didn't seem real to me.

Exactly! The question is: Why is that?

I know I can refrain from doing it, accepting that I have these urges I can do too, but how then do I go about exploring them, without hurting anybody, myself included,

Q'uo has stated that it's healthy to explore our desires in a harmless way. But how to do that when it is potentially hurting someone? That's not harmless. Other people are involved here.

Suggestion: This is just an idea, but have any of you men ever thought about getting involved in some sort of outreach for abused women, some sort of volunteer work, or something like that? Maybe if you were to get to know some of these women, hear their stories, it might help to see the whole issue differently. What had been a self-serving act or even an addiction might be transformed into an act of service.